RI Treatment

[WingedWolfPsion]

Your vet should always take a culture and identify the organism when an infection is present. It's fine if they send you home with a good antibiotic while they wait for the results, but the results are necessary to make sure the snake is on the right meds.

Keep the cage warm--as high as 100F basking, 85 cool. That is hot, but it IS safe. It's the equivalent of giving your snake a low-grade fever, and it suppresses the growth of some of these organisms. Keep the humidity high. Soak the snake in nice warm water every other day, and then hang it upside down afterward--mucous may run out, so have paper towel handy. You'll find the snake appears much more comfortable after this treatment, and breathing is easier. Good hydration is best for ANY infection, and high humidity helps with this. It also helps prevent liver damage from the meds. When I have had snakes with RIs, I found that hanging them head-down once a day would help them clear mucous from their lungs, and they would breathe much easier afterward.

Keep sick snakes in strict quarantine, and be particularly wary of any RI that does not resolve with antibiotics within a week. Use bleach to carefully sterilize the rack shelf, bin, and anything the snake contacts. Wash hands strictly after touching anything around the sick snake.

If the appropriate antibiotic is prescribed for the identified organism, the snake completes the course of antibiotics and is still sick--suspect a virus. Keep the snake on a strong antibiotic (switch to another one that the organism was sensitive to), continue soaking, tube-feed if rapid weight loss occurs, and cross your fingers. Recovery may be hit or miss with a respiratory virus, and may take a long time. Some choose to euthanize to avoid the risk to other animals in the household, while others consider recovered snakes to be immune and to not pose a risk. It depends on the virus. Do your research!

Proper quarantine of new animals introduced to a large collection should be 12 months...not just 3. Some of the bad bugs can incubate for over 10 months, on record. Always be aware of the chance you are taking if you put snakes in with your collection after just 3 months, and take careful precautions with them for their first year--no feeding leftovers to other snakes, no transferring cage furniture or bowls, etc etc.
Chlorhexedine kills bacteria, it's great for that. It doesn't kill the bad bugs--use bleach to disinfect things contaminated by any suspect snake.

READ UP--with a growing collection I have so much invested it, I read up on these things extensively, from multiple sources. I don't want a tragedy in my collection, as some others have endured. Prevention is the best way.